Here in my town people recycle almost 50% so I do think people are getting much better about recycling. The Staples takes recyclables. The Price Chopper takes recyclables. Even BestBuy takes in free e-recyclables. So it's everywhere!

Lisa, I really want to live in the Northeast where people are so open to taking care of the planet.

But then I don't want to leave this landscape i love, so here I stay.

So in the meantime, i will just encourage everyone i know to get better at recycling and reusing. :-) I can't even get my local aunt and uncle to recycle anything. Nothing at all - and they have a lot of beer cans and beer bottles they chuck.

Or my MIL in LA, who goes through a zillion cans of soda and small plastic water bottles a day.

This is just for example. They know how much it means to me to recycle and i love them, but it just isn't worth it to them to have an extra container in the kitchen for recyclables.

I walk around town here and am constantly rummaging though people's overflowing garbage to take things to recycling bins. I know change is happening, but it's really slow in some areas of the country.

More and more trash companies are doing the recycling themselves, so my hope is that that will spread across the country and then it won't matter what individual people do. It's in the trash company's best interest since they get an income flow for recyclables and an income hit for trash they have to bury.